A multiport communication switch may be provided in a data communication network to enable data communication between multiple network stations connected to various ports of the switch. A logical connection may be created between receive ports and transmit ports of the switch to forward received frames to appropriate destinations. Based on frame headers, a frame forwarding arrangement selectively transfers received frames to a destination station.
In a conventional communication system, each receive port is assigned with a fixed time slot, during which frame headers received from that port are transferred to processing circuitry that determines a destination station. However, data traffic at a given port may vary, so that some of the ports may become overloaded, while the others are underloaded. Hence, when no data are supplied to the frame forwarding arrangement from a given port, the bandwidth allocated to that port is wasted, whereas processing of frame headers from the overloaded ports may be delayed because the bandwidth allocated to them is not sufficient.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide a frame forwarding arrangement able to dynamically allocate time slots to various ports, in order to more efficiently utilize the assigned bandwidth.